Can't all space nerds get along?

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophile"
>
> Well of course it doesn't have to be tourism OR powersats. Getting
> launch costs down for one (won't have any success for either one if
> you don't)

But it's not obvious that you can't do powersats and platinum with
current-technology launch costs, if you make the robots cheap enough
that you can comfortably lose 10% and smart enough that you don't have
to send any humans to fetch the asteroid material.

That way when you do get tourism and colonization, you only need to
launch the people not the supplies. Plus there are extra destinations
for the tourists: historic mining and manufacturing facilities, the
infrastructure that powers the world, and so on.